Against the backdrop of Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat’s two deadlines set within a few days to make the roads free from potholes showing no positive results on the roads, senior Congress leader and former Speaker of the Assembly Govind Singh Kunjwal has threatened a fast-unto-death if the budget earlier sanctioned for the roads passing through his constituency Someswar are not released immediately.
He further alleged that the BJP Government has curtailed the budget sanctioned for the roads earlier approved by the Harish Rawat-led Congress regime.Observers say that things are still as much grim on the roads as they were when two girls were crushed to death on an important road in the State Capital in August.
“The roads, even the important ones, still have gaping potholes which are making the people vulnerable to fatal accidents. If the State of the roads passing through the heart of the city is like this one can imagine how things are in the outskirts,” an observer said.
Talking to ‘The Pioneer’, an official said that despite the CM having set deadlines twice to repair the potholed stretches, things have not progressed much due to the rains. "We use medium sized chips/grit to fill the potholes. What happens is that when the vehicles move along such roads during the rains the potholes turn wider. We can hardly help things when it rains,” he added.
Another official ascribed the sorry state of things on the roads to the State Government’s ban on mining. “This is landing us in problem as not enough materials like grit are left to us to repair the potholes. The black tops we lay wash off following rain. If things are done during the rainy season it amounts to a wastage of public money. Though we can send a large bill in the name of repairing works we are not doing this.
This might cost us our jobs, but we can hardly allow the scarce public money to be squandered away this way," he explained. A person from Delhi who had visited Dehradun after the regime change in the State said while talking to this correspondent that things had hardly changed.
“When I landed at Jollygrant airport and took a cab to reach Dehradun via Mohkampur railway crossing where a flyover was being constructed I felt that the Government was non-existent.
I had a harrowing time while the cab negotiated the two-km stretch near the under-construction flyover site. I can imagine why the people are dying almost daily while moving on the roads,” he recounted.